A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #250
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For August 17-23, 2022.
Hello and welcome to A Newsletter of Humorous Writing, a roundup of the week's finest short humor pieces and funny articles, and a celebration of the fantastic writers who wrote them. On this day in 1609, Gallileo showed off his first telescope in Venice. We don't know if Gallileo did any bits when he was demonstrating the device, but if we had been there, we would have pitched putting a little picture of a butt inside the 'scope. Guaranteed to kill with the Venetians.
What We Enjoyed This Week
There Are Far More Things to Worry About at Our Beach Than Shark Attacks by David Guzman (McSweeney's) Pacing in humor is as important as it is challenging to get right. By combining sections formatted as lists with framing sections formatted as notes from an embattled authority figure, David is able to speed up and slow down the delivery of jokes. Not to say that the piece isn't funny throughout--it's packed with funny lines, callbacks, and great details.
Oscar Wilde Gets a Little Lost in the Sauce by Lillie Franks (Points In Case) The premise of this piece is set up with clarity, and the repetition of the pattern helps you understand what Lillie is getting at, even if you aren’t familiar with the specific Oscar Wilde trope being parodied. This is also an excellent example of heightening; the piece wobbles and unravels so that by the end, even the syntax has come apart in service of the jokes.
Liquid Death Mango Chainsaw Sparkling Water by Richie Zaborowske (McSweeney's) McSweeney's food reviews tend to be non-fiction, and are generally written from the perspective of the writer, with most of the humor coming from observational, non-premise-based jokes. But this review has a heightened, character-y, fictional premise--how lightly or heavily fictionalized, we don't know--and it makes for a fun blend of review and humor piece.
An Old Favorite
This week's Old Favorite is a Brian Agler Selection (TM)--a piece whose accompanying note was written by Brian--from Newsletter #87.
If You Should Chance to Find This Message, Tell the World That I Did Not Enjoy the Last Episode of "Game of Thrones" by Cathy Herbert (Points In Case) Though we haven't featured many of them, it's worth noting the end of Game of Thrones as it relates to short humor. Over the past eight years, GoT has seemed to demand comedic responses and the end of the series has seen a final flurry of humor pieces. This one by Cathy Herbert is particularly effective because it doesn't recite dogged tropes, but instead riffs on the phenomenon of required opinions and conversations about GoT. Combine this with a strong, specific voice and a clever scenario, and you have a Thrones piece that breaks through the noise.
Do you have an Old Favorite of your own? Let us know by filling out this form and we may run your pick in a future edition of the newsletter.
Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Show
Luke's got just TWO spots left in the upcoming Tuesday night edition of his "Let's Write MORE Short Humor Pieces" workshop. He's also got a single-session workshop on editing and giving/getting feedback on short humor coming up as well. Check out some of the very funny work that's come out of previous workshops, including a piece that just got published in the print edition of The New Yorker.
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See you next week!
@lukevburns & @jamesfolta
We started this newsletter with our dear friend Brian Agler, and we want it to always honor his memory and his love of all things humorous. You can find our newsletter tribute to Brian here.
This newsletter is free, but if you enjoy it and want to support the work we do putting it together, you can send us a tip here. Any amount is greatly appreciated, and 1/3rd of each donation will go to Stand Up To Cancer.
If you have any thoughts, notes, wishes, or dreams for this newsletter, please email us or respond to this email and tell us what the score is!
See you next week!
@lukevburns & @jamesfolta
We started this newsletter with our dear friend Brian Agler, and we want it to always honor his memory and his love of all things humorous. You can find our newsletter tribute to Brian here.
This newsletter is free, but if you enjoy it and want to support the work we do putting it together, you can subscribe to our paid tier, or you can send us a tip here. Any amount is greatly appreciated, and 1/3rd of each donation will go to Stand Up To Cancer.
If you'd like to place an ad in the Newsletter, please fill out this form.
If you have any thoughts, notes, wishes, or dreams for this newsletter, please email us or respond to this email and tell us what the score is!